State's Medical Examiners To Examine Ethics

The Action Follows A Case In Which A Victim's Head Was Donated To Science Without The Family's Knowledge.

March 28, 1997|By Henry Pierson Curtis of The Sentinel Staff

Controversy over a murder victim's missing skull prompted Florida medical examiners Thursday to reconsider how they notify next of kin about autopsies.

The 12-member Medical Examiners Commission voted unanimously to explore a new ethics protocol at the same time several legislators are calling for new laws to limit the doctors' far-reaching powers.

The vote came shortly after the victim's mother angrily described learning that a Gainesville medical examiner had removed her daughter's head and donated it for research without telling police, the prosecutor or the family.

''Our true goal is to ensure this never happens again in the state of Florida,'' Patricia Cedena of Gainesville said.

Cedena's daughter, Rita Melton, 32, was strangled in 1988 in an unsolved killing in Alachua County.

Her family was not notified until 20 months later that Dr. William Hamilton, the medical examiner, had removed the head before releasing the body, Cedena said. It was 16 months before the skull was returned for burial, she said.

''I had an intuitive feeling almost immediately after I received her cremated remains. I knew something was missing,'' Cedena said, saying she questioned investigators repeatedly before Hamilton admitted removing the head. ''Intuitively, I knew her head was not among her remains.''

Several medical examiners at the hearing, at the Omni Rosen Hotel on International Drive in Orlando, spoke of greater need for sensitivity for survivors. They privately faulted Hamilton for not telling Melton's family why he wanted the skull.

As a group, the medical examiners oppose the proposed legislation. They said the commission does an adequate job of regulating them.

''I'd just hate to see a bunch of legislators running in oddball directions when not one of them has the vaguest idea, in many instance, what we do. It's just not common knowledge, and we can be severely crippled,'' said Dr. Ronald L. Reeves, the medical examiner in Volusia County.

The bills would limit autopsy tests to identifying the victim and the cause of death. They also would require family notification and consent before tissue samples could be used for research.

Dr. Joseph H. Davis, former Dade County medical examiner and a co-author of the state's 26-year-old medical examiner's law, said the restrictions would limit the types of research that have produced improved highway safety, automobile design and stricter drinking and driving laws.

Hamilton did not attend the hearing. He defeated a $3 million civil lawsuit filed last year by Cedena.